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  • 2018-06-27 (xsd:date)
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  • Will Canadians' Cell Phones Now Be Searched at the U.S. Border? (en)
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  • In late June 2018, an article from the web site Narcity.com, headlined Canadians Will Now Have Their Phones Searched When Crossing the US Border, went viral on Facebook and other social media sites. Although the article's headline employed verbiage suggesting that something had changed around the time it was published, the article's text noted it was reporting news that was already several months old: The source that Narcity.com linked to was a 19 January 2018 CBC article about U.S. Customs and Border Protection having issued a new directive a few weeks earlier that set new limits on agents, establishing criteria for when they can conduct extensive searches of travelers' cellphones: As the CBC noted, border agents cannot stop U.S. citizens from entering the country, even if they refuse to unlock their device or provide the password (but, as stated above, a border agent could delay travel or even deny entry to non-U.S. citizens who refuse to do so). It is difficult to determine why Narcity.com waited six months to report on a January 2018 news story, and why a source stating that U.S. officials hypothetically can do something (i.e., search cellphones without cause) was changed to unequivocal assertion that it will be happening (by implication to all Canadians entering the United States). Diplomatic tensions flared up between Canada and the United States in mid-2018, with a widely-reported dispute between U.S. president Donald Trump and Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau possibly creating a misconception fostered by Narcity.com's article that the United States had implemented a new policy to retaliate against its Canadian neighbors. No new U.S. border policy regarding cellphone searches was implemented in June 2018, nor is it a certainty that under previously existing policy all or most Canadians entering the U.S. will have their phones searched (rather than being something that might occur in isolated cases). According to the CBC, cellphones of travelers crossing the U.S. border (both Americans and non-citizens) were searched during in one out of 13,000 border crossings (or 0.007 percent of the time) in 2017. (en)
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